It's been a slow day at the BudgetBlog, so we thought we'd point out a few interesting links. Tax & Business Law Commentary Blog has two good posts up, one about howBig Pharma is stiffing the IRS on taxes it owes on its foreign sales and assets, and another on how Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA) is stiffing the IRS on taxes he owes on his property sales. Feel free to ponder the potential meta-connections between the posts. And check out this article from the Rapid City Journal on the effects that federal budget cuts may have on water supply issues in South Dakota. It's pretty frightening stuff. In addition to concerns about the repercussions of the drought, Anderson and Williamson said recent budget cuts have forced them to discontinue seven flow gauges within the past year. The USGS gets the majority of its funding from “reimbursable funds” from federal, state and local cooperators, Anderson said. Nearly 70 different cooperators including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of Transportation and other state and local agencies allocate funding for the USGS. Mid-fiscal-year budget cuts from the BIA forced the discontinuation of seven gauges in the eastern and central portions of the state. A further cut from the Corps of Engineers likely will lead to the shutdown of eight more gauges in the next year... ...“We think it’s significant to the people of South Dakota to know that gauges are being discontinued,” he said. “It’s real hard to say much about climate change when all you have is a 10-year record,” Anderson said. “If you have a 100-year record of stream flow, we can look and see whether there are trends in the amount of water in the stream and what that says about climate change in our area.” An April 11 article by John Schwartz of the New York Times said the loss of funding for stream gauges had contributed to a heightened danger of flash floods in some areas of the country.